After fooling around with a prequel and a lesser sequel, Ukrainian developer GSC Game World gets down to brass tacks with a true sequel to popular first=person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, due out in 2012.

2007's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl received a prequel in 2008, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. This year's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat was more of a continuation to the original game than a true sequel. Consider the whole trilogy to be the first chapter in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. story.

Chapter two begins in 2012 with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

"After the official sales of the series exceeded 4 million copies worldwide, we had no doubts left to start creating a new big game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. This will be the next chapter of the mega-popular game players expect from us" - said Sergiy Grygorovych, CEO of GSC Game World."

According to the official release, the next game will abandon the X-Ray Engine used to create the first three games, instead being built using completely new multi-platform technology developed by GSC.

Hopefully we'll see more on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 next week during GamesCom 2010.